Page 7 of Dark Ugly Places

The scent of his cologne—strong and freshly applied.

It’s almost as if the hot asphalt is beneath me once again.

Calm down, I tell myself. Breathe.

My chest is heavy, burdened. I can’t seem to move. Hot tears run down my cheeks. I can’t quite connect to my body, as if I’m outside of myself. Jason hovers over me and, to my surprise, offers me a hand. As I take it, something on his skin catches my eye.

The elevator jolts and begins to move. In moments, it dings as we arrive at the Club Level.

“Thank you,” I manage.

“Don’t sweat it,” he says and walks straight past me to the check- in desk that leads to the Garden, the hostesses nodding shyly, enamored. A brunette woman in sunglasses wearing a long, silken dress and shawl waits beneath an ivy canopy. From a distance, I can see her long, slender frame, her perfectly put-together outfit, the poise of someone used to attention. I watch him go to her, expecting a polite embrace, the standard Hollywood air kiss. Instead, he grabs her hand, a strange familiarity in the gesture, and leads her toward one of the cabanas, where they both disappear behind its white awning.

And that’s when it lands for me. The recognition sends a slow chill along my shoulders and neck. It wasn’t just the clip of his shoes, perfectly new, perfectly polished. Expensive. Black and heavy.

I could be wrong.

I might be imagining it.

My mind isn’t what it used to be.

But then again, my gut hums with knowing.

The thing I saw on his hand. It was a tattoo across his middle finger, like a black wedding band. Just like the driver had that day.

3

Nicola

Dr. Constance’s office has a smell that makes me want to cry as soon as I walk in. There’s a certain odor of despair soaked in so deeply that it’s even in the carpets. Overhead, the air conditioner whirs and sputters, releasing frigid air over the top of my pounding head. I let my eyes roam over a brown stain in the shape of an eggplant in the worn carpet and wonder what created it. Then Silvia, the receptionist, sticks her head out of the tiny square window below the sign that reads, “No food or drink allowed. No se permite comida ni bebida.”

“Mrs. Holiday?”

I nod and ease myself up, my dead leg pricking from hip to toe.

I make my way down the hall to Dr. Constance’s office. She sits at her desk, which is buried under client files and take-out containers so deep that you are never sure if you are interrupting a briefing or her lunch hour.

“Come in, come in,” Dr. Constance says, not getting up. Her fuchsia hair is done up today, her makeup heavy like she used the biggest brush she had to apply her bright blue eye shadow. “Have a seat.”

I take the furthest chair from her, near the window, even though a fern is there, close enough to hit me in the face if it’s turned right. I like being by the window, though. There’s a little park across the street, and I imagine I’m sitting on the grass, sun on my legs, tree leaves falling around me like giant confetti. I’d rather be anywhere but here.

“How are you doing?”

I tell her about my leg and the fact that I’m all out of physical therapy time. There’s only so much physical therapy you’re allowed before they shut you down because it doesn’t look good for the case. And anyway, the physical therapists only get paid on a lien, just like Constance. She nods and listens, making big sweeping notes in her file with a light pencil that feels too temporary, like at any point she could decide to erase everything from my case files and start all over again. I watch her scribble notes as I talk, her eyes drooping, tired. Ironically, she asks me, “Are you sleeping?”

“Yes,” I lie. “I sleep fine now.”

“And the food? How are you with the food?”

She means my appetite. “I’m doing better,” I lie again. The truth is, I have even less of an appetite than the last time I saw her, if that’s possible.

She closes the file and leans forward, like she wants to say something. She doesn’t.

“Emmy is stressing me out,” I tell her, just to keep things moving. “I’m worried about her.”

“Teenagers bounce back from these things. They are plastic,” she says, waving her hands like it’s a miracle.

I nod. “I don’t know how to help her. She seems so … damaged.” I don’t tell her my deeper fear. The one I can hardly acknowledge myself. That somehow, this trauma will act as a trigger and bring about in Emmy what it did in me so long ago.